Boys and Girls Come Out to Play

by Nigel Dennis

  When he had spoken his last word there was a pause, and almost immediately an air of nervousness. A few of the guests looked at Willi with the well-known expression of deep respect that a person assumes when he feels sorry for somebody who is obviously honest and obviously stupid; but the rest of the guests merely frowned solemnly at the tablecloth and fingered their bread. They had been deeply stirred, but they had not yet made up their minds whether it would be safe to applaud Willi, and the most they could do was so to twist their features as to suggest that they did have minds to make up. One thing was clear to everybody—that a potato is a ridiculous, that is to say dangerous, thing to talk about impressively; like their French colleagues, they suspected Willi’s potato of being all wrong somehow, and they had more than a suspicion that to swallow it whole would be fatal to their own dignity. On the other hand, of course … one never knew … and how beautiful all those figures had been … like a dream … They peeked furtively out from under their knitted eyebrows, first at Willi, then at the faces of their friends. The silence was embarrassing.

  It became more embarrassing when Mrs. Morgan chose that moment to drift slowly into one of those trances to which most people are subject but which in her case were not only conspicuous but apt to last a good half-minute. Her assurance receded from her face, her eyes became staring, and her lips parted in a flabby way that would have given her a look of complete vacuity if there had not also been a strong impression that she was helplessly sneering, like a worn-out old whore. For some seconds the guests had the unpleasant sensation of being suspended in emptiness, an illusion that was strengthened by the fact that sunlight was pouring in from a whole side of windows. At last, at the end of the table, the principal editor cleared his throat nervously: “Aa-aa-aa, Mr. Morgenstern,” he said sonorously, “if I may say so—I hope it’s not beside the point, but I was really astounded—you were able to give us those amazingly complicated and highly fascinating figures without referring to a single note.”

  There was a deep bellow of agreement. At once, the happiest smiles appeared on the double row of faces, and Mrs. Morgan, returned to consciousness abruptly, added her smile to the rest without a second’s thought. A kind of happy prattling broke out: “I could scarcely believe my ears,” cried the editor: “I was the same way,” cried someone else. “It was incredible.” “How ever did you do it?” “I have had much practice,” said Willi sadly. “I think perhaps a European university trains its students in that kind of memory-association in a way that we might well learn from,” said the editor. “I thought,” said another, “that we Americans held the field in giving figures, but we’d better bow to Mr. Morgenstern.” There was general laughter at this, but instead of bowing, the guests began to stand up and stretch their arms and legs in a satisfied way. The editor got up to speak to Mrs. Morgan, saying earnestly as he passed Willi: “Mr. Morgenstern, I hope you are going to jot down a few of the things you told us today; there were points that I feel sure would interest our readers in a shortish article.” “Yes, I will do so,” said Willi, “though I am sorry we could not now have had some small discussion of my ideas.” “We are most grateful to you, Mr. Morgenstern,” said Mrs. Morgan, smiling firmly. “At the moment,” said the editor, “we are of course desperately pressed for space on account of the international situation.”

  Divver unveiled his brows and disengaged his jaw from his palm; Morgan followed his example; they rose from the table in stately unison. Divver was about to stride from the room when he changed his mind, turned on his heel and approached Morgan. “Don’t mind my saying this will you,” he began—and Morgan was surprised to see that his new idol’s face was worried—frightened, Morgan would have said of anyone else. Divver then lowered his voice and said: “My trip to Poland; your mother knows of course, but I—ah—I’m just not saying a thing about it to anyone else right now. I won’t go into all the reasons; actually, even my wife doesn’t know,” and he laughed with an odd sort of nervousness, as though he could hardly believe his own words. “I’ll not say a thing,” said Morgan, delighted. “That’s the idea: just keep it to yourself for a—well, a week, or two, or three,” said Divver. He gave Morgan a look of deep comradeship and understanding, edged off sideways a few steps and then left the room with his usual stateliness.

  *

  The Cadillac had taken the last of the guests to the station. Morgan found his mother sitting on a rustic bench under the largest of the maple trees; the day had tired her and she was slowly pulling a bunch of rosemary through her hands and talking to her secretary in a low voice. When she saw her son speeding towards her, his face glowing like the sun’s, she gave a heavy sigh and looked at the ground, showing to the secretary her top of wiry, rather lifeless hair with its conflicting tints of colour at the parting. Looking down on the stooped figure, the secretary was moved to pity, as well as to respect for her own blonde hair and for the bust that had so intense an effect on the present tutor. She didn’t know what was going on between Mrs. Morgan and her son, but she always obtained a pleasing sense of maturity and dignity by taking the mother’s side. “I think I shall go to village after all,” she said, as Morgan came up: “how about a walk, Jimmy?”

  He showed at once that he was not going to be distracted from his mother by girlish sycophancy. “I walked all this morning,” he said sullenly, staring down on his mother’s bowed head as if he would drag her to her feet if need be.

  “Such a lovely evening,” said the secretary. “My feet are just tingling to go,” she exclaimed, hopping. “Come on, Jimmy!”

  “I’m not coming.”

  “You old lazybones.”

  “You’d better go along, Peggy,” said Mrs. Morgan, observing her son with a faint shudder.

  “Such a shame; such waste,” said the secretary, looking into the sun and clasping her breasts.

  Mother and son were left under the big tree.

  “Look now, mother …”

  “Jimmy, first of all let me say: there’s something on your mind and I hope very much it isn’t that Polish idea.”

  “You know very well …”

  “… because if it is you know my answer.”

  “I saw Max again, and spoke to him.”

  Mrs. Morgan started. “You’re not going to tell me you talked about going to Poland with him?”

  “Not exactly. But from the way he spoke …”

  “Tell me the truth, please; he didn’t again invite you to go, did he?”

  “He didn’t say he wasn’t taking me.”

  “Don’t evade the point. It was a joke, his asking you in the first place. You know that as well as I do. Max isn’t a very intelligent man; he’s really a reporter. Now, what d’you want, Jimmy?”

  “You know what I want. He asked me to go.”

  “Must you go on repeating that—he asked you to go? Don’t you listen when I explain that he asked no such thing?”

  “It isn’t true.”

  “Never mind what it is or isn’t. I’ve told you already; people would think I was mad if I let you go. I hoped that after that little man had said those things today—most sensible things—you would realize for yourself the impossibility of going. Perhaps you didn’t listen.”

  “You mean all that about potatoes? What’s that got to do with my going to Poland?”

  His mother groaned. “Do you never listen, Jimmy? Such a fine, intelligent man, and his words wasted on you. And you looked so absorbed. I suppose your mind was far away.”

  They were silent for a moment, and then Morgan said suddenly:

  “I’m not going to stay tied here. It’s not done any good for me, has it?”

  His mother winced, and looked at her son with such reproach that he felt ashamed, and blushed. Mrs. Morgan looked down at the ground once more, and when she raised her head again she spoke patiently and persuasively. “I have been thinking things over and I agree that you should get away from here; no young man is going to stay at home with his mother. I was telli
ng Peggy that your Uncle Sam has asked if you’d like to spend all the summer with him in Colorado, and I think on the whole that’s the best idea.”

  “I’m not going to Colorado.”

  “Jimmy, you are not going to Poland.”

  “I am going to Poland.”

  Mrs. Morgan walked into the house without another word.

  Over the cold supper, the secretary tried again. Noticing that mother and son dealt with each other only in frigid politenesses, she rose to the occasion with little jokes, and gambolled off ingenuously into remarks about the joys of sunlight and summer. At last she said boldly: “I dream of Colorado, of Arizona.”

  Morgan looked at his plate and said nothing. Mrs. Morgan wet her lips and wound cole-slaw on her fork. “How I wish I could go there, like you,” said the secretary. “Lucky Jimmy!”

  “Oh, why don’t you stop gabbing?” shouted Morgan suddenly, glaring at her in a rage.

  “Please leave the table, Jimmy,” said his mother. He did so, slamming the door behind him: the room shook.

  “I’m afraid I put my foot in it,” sighed the secretary, making a sorry-baby’s mouth.

  “I’m afraid you did,” said Mrs. Morgan. “And I must tell you: he was quite right. You have no business to interfere.”

  The secretary turned crimson with humiliation.

  “I think we’d better leave the table,” said Mrs. Morgan, getting up and walking out.

  After a half-hour of private indignation the secretary put on her coat, left the grounds by the wicket gate and walked up the dark lane to the tutor’s cabin. He was sitting on the little screened porch, apparently writing, and when he looked up and saw the secretary step out of the darkness into the lamplight he pushed away his papers and eagerly let her in. When the secretary looked at his earnest face with its pale sunburn and silly edge of beard, she found it degrading that she should have to come to him for comfort. “Did I interrupt your doodling?” she said sarcastically, sitting down in his chair.

  He collapsed immediately. “I’m getting along, but much too slowly,” he said nervously. “I must work more; I must get down to things; no one’s to blame but me if I don’t. Some of my trouble is that I don’t belong in any particular school—of thought, I mean. I am influenced of course, but I cannot step directly into any cultural tradition: there is nothing in America from which I feel that I emerge, that I inherit.”

  “Perhaps your cultural tradition is to make a career out of talking that way. You men get all the breaks.”

  “Yes, I guess we do, really,” he said, apologetically but with a timid pipe of pride. “Society is still basically masculine.”

  “How I hate women!” said the secretary.

  “Oh, come now!” he said, waving his hands in trepidation.

  “Yes, I do. I’ll never work for one again. They never miss a chance to stab you in the back. They’re always thwarted.” She gave him her version of the evening’s events.

  “That’s too bad, Peggy,” he said sadly. He hesitated, and then said: “I hope you realize that I have a most deep and real respect for you as an individual. I hope you never think that I just look on you as a woman in the sense of a sexual outlet. I have a really profound feeling for you as a whole—for you as you.”

  “Thank you for putting a nickel under the saucer; but my pay-check comes from Mrs. Morgan, not you.”

  “I’ve often thought,” said the tutor, gathering a little courage, “that if I could have an easy, informal talk with the old dame I could set her right on one or two things. But neither of them even listens. Do you know, time and again I’ve said the simplest sort of sentence to the boy and found that half a minute later he has no memory of it—no memory at all, not the smallest idea. They’re set in that big house with all those lawns and trees and they have no idea whatsoever of what’s real; they don’t want to be told, what’s more.”

  “I think you’ve got something there,” said the secretary, feeling a little better and looking at the tutor even with a trace of respect.

  “An almost schizophrenic withdrawal from life,” he said, growing more confident. “The invitations to country luncheons are most significant. Reality appears for a few hours every Sunday and is then dismissed again to New York. All her business, all his vagueness, though apparently opposite, are in fact identical as fantasy.”

  “Well, let’s just not talk about it any more,” said the secretary. She went to examine a bug on the screen—a roundabout way of being able to stop in front of the tutor on her way back and pat his cheek without any loss of face. “You look nice today,” she said.

  He seized her hand. “Do you think I ought to shave off my beard?”

  “I don’t see why,” she said, mounting his lap. “It’ll look all right once it starts showing.”

  He gave her a furry kiss. “Here’s what I’ve been thinking,” he said. The secretary closed her eyes and laid her head on his shoulder. “My work, of course, has to come first, as any man’s does. But I hope to be able to sell the piece I’m working on now—I won’t really get anything for it, and don’t expect to—but say for $35. Then, I have good reason to believe that I’ll be getting another $25 for that translation I got a letter about yesterday. That makes $60. Then, my father’s pretty sure to cash in for my birthday next month. What I thought was that sometime in July we might go off somewhere together: I know a place in the Catskills where the scenery is completely beautiful. You could swim, and we could take walks; we could walk for miles there without ever setting eyes on anyone except ourselves.”

  “Let’s not think too far ahead,” said the secretary. “It spoils the present somehow.”

  “Jesus, you feel good,” said the tutor.

  “Take me inside and make me feel gooder,” said the secretary, keeping her eyes closed and trying to pretend that she was in the arms of a certain man named George. He picked her up and stumbled, puffing, toward the bedroom.

  *

  Mrs. Morgan and the secretary both looked tired at breakfast next morning. They ate on the sunporch, which looked out on the stone bridge: over the splashing of the electric percolator they could hear the brook boiling its way over the artificial waterfalls. The secretary’s slacks were baby-blue; a ribbon of the same colour was tied over her hair. Mrs. Morgan wore black slacks, embroidered with golden Chinese dragons; her toe-nails were lacquered and showed out of wooden-soled, Malayan sandals. She read the Herald-Tribune; the secretary read the Times; later, they would exchange.

  Halfway through breakfast, Mrs. Morgan began to fidget. “Please Rosa; go up to his room; don’t say anything; just knock, and say ‘Breakfast is ready.’”

  The maid came back and reported that the room was empty. “Did you look in the bathroom?” asked Mrs. Morgan, rising and turning pale.

  “Yes, ma’am. The door’s open and he’s not in there.”

  “Thank you, Rosa.” Mrs. Morgan sat down again; the colour came back to her face. She lit a cigarette, crossed her legs in a mannish way, and in a slow thoughtful voice began to spell out the day’s work, the secretary writing it on a pad. But after only a few minutes she began to fidget again, and groped under the table with her sandal for the bell-button.